Crown's Chance at Love (46 page)

“They are going wonderfully. Everything is now in place, I only have one more table to sell.”

“Hmm, when will you be sending the place cards to the calligraphers?” she asks sternly as she notices that Mike has sat right next to me.

“Mother, this isn’t a business dinner,” Mike says annoyed and I place my hand on his knee and gently squeeze.

“You are right,” she says as her staff brings out course after course.

It was a delicious meal. Dinner conversation is mostly the men talking and Gail trying to bring up the Gala. I learned that Walt is wonderfully charming, and easy to make laugh. In a lot of ways Mike is a lot like his dad. Charming, charismatic, incredibly handsome. Mike is just a lot more reserved than Walt.

By the last course Gail suggests we should have dessert in the sitting room and asks me to accompany her to get the coffee together, and to give us a chance to get to know one another. Mike looks hesitant, but I just smile and go with her.

Alone in a beautiful kitchen with her makes me a little nervous, but I try to relax.

“What can I help with?” I ask.

She stands next to the coffee machine staring at me with a sour look on her face.

“Now tell me Sabrina, where do you see this thing with my son going?” she says bluntly and cold, catching me completely off guard.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Crown I don’t understand,” I say, trying to keep my cool, but my stomach tells me this isn’t going to be pretty. It’s obvious she doesn’t like me.

“He is forty,” she says standing heading to her hutch and grabbing a couple of dainty beautifully decorated antique mugs.

“I am aware of that.”

“You are what? Thirty eight?”

“No, I am thirty-six,” I say getting a little annoyed at her rudeness.

“Right, so I am guessing you are done with having children. I mean you do already have an obscene amount as it is.” I almost want to laugh at her comment about having an obscene amount of kids. It isn’t like I’m Octomom.

“I’m not sure I agree three kids is an obscene amount,” I say trying to bite away my smile, thinking there is no way she can be serious. “But as for more children, I hadn’t really thought about it,” I lied.

I had thought about kids with Mike, a little girl with his pale blue eyes and his wavy almost curly hair. But that was a subject that Mike and I hadn’t even discussed. Much less a subject to talk about with his mom; no way that would be appropriate.

“I am going to have to be very honest with you. You as a mother yourself, I think you can see why I am worried about my son, dating a woman like you.” Her voice is angry and her muddy brown eyes are cold and mean. My throat suddenly grows extremely dry.

“Like me?” I ask and her eyes are cold throwing daggers as she raises her chin up at me looking down at me.

“A woman with more baggage than any man should ever have to deal with,” she says shaking her head, almost as if it should be obvious what she is talking about. Her hand is in a fist on the counter, like I am trying her patience. “Especially a man like him.”

Completely stunned and caught off guard at how she is speaking to me, I have no idea what to say.

“I mean you have to know what he is doing being with you right? He thinks that he is correcting a wrong, a wrong his brother made. He isn’t having real feelings for you,” she says seriously and I honestly don’t know what to say to her at this moment. My head is spinning and trying absorb the ugly things she’s saying.

She has no idea what Mike and I share. Sure maybe at the beginning he had approached me because of what Patrick had done, but now things have changed. Haven’t they?

“I mean you must know you aren’t his type. You must have seen the type of women my son dates. I mean Holly alone should tell you that you are dating a little over your head with this one sweetheart.”

“Mrs. Crown…” I try to interrupt.

“You are completely out of your league here sweetheart. He isn’t the type of man that ends up with the help,” she says with a smirk at the edge of her lips making me want to slap her.

“Excuse me?” I am caught so off guard by this conversation I don’t even know what to say. Shocked and stunned I stand there and listen to her.

“All you are sweetheart, is a sad reminder of his brother’s biggest mistake; a pathetic widow with three kids that will never be his own. He deserves to have children of his own, not just some poor schmucks’ leftovers,” She says in one of the most hateful voices I have ever heard.

I open my mouth to say something, just as Mike walks in and Gail veils her evilness with a kind smile. She comes over to me and hugs me digging her boney fingers into my shoulder. I can feel my blood boiling at her hatefulness; and she has the nerve to come over and hug me! Mike looks at us and it’s almost like I see a sigh of relief from him. To him it must look like we are getting along.

“Honey why don’t you and Sabrina finish up here, I’ll go to the living room with your dad,” she says sweetly, giving me a hug as she leaves.

“Sure,” he says as he comes over to me. I am dumbfounded at the game she is playing. I try to smile at him and somehow it must have looked convincing, since he comes over to me and holds me tight.

“Was she okay?” he asks curiously.

“What do you mean?” I ask cautiously. I don’t know what to say. This is his mom after all.

“She isn’t the easiest person to be around Honey.”

“Umm… Yeah you are right about that,” I say trying to distract myself, going to the counter and placing the coffee pot onto a tray. I’m trying to figure out how his mom had just insulted me and basically denying any approval of Mike seeing me, calling my kids
baggage
and referring to me as
the help
. My mind is reeling and it must be showing.

“Baby you okay?”  he asks sounding a little worried as his body comes up behind me. I know he is leaning down, because his face is now in the crook where my neck and shoulders meet.

“Yeah… yeah I am, just a little tired,” I say trying to shake off what his mom had said.
It’s not how he feels
, I think to myself.

He nuzzles my neck and I can feel the anger start to slowly fade away.
Just talk to him when you get back home.

“You smell fucking great baby. Can we tell my parents we have to go? Head to that spot a little earlier? Or maybe just take you back to my place?” He licks my neck lightly, his warm breath on the sensitive skin there makes me shiver and needy for him.

“I was kind of looking forward to making out with you… oh… my,” my breathing quickens as I feel his mouth on my skin, his hands roaming my shoulders, back, arms, the outer part of my breasts making me shiver in his arms. Then he wraps his arms around me.

“You’re right… I need to take you to that spot,” he says happily kissing my cheek loudly. “One cup of coffee and we are out of here okay?” I look at him, his light blue eyes are bright and happy.
There is no way he feels that way
, I think to myself. I smile as brightly as I can, trying to shake off the ugly doubts his mom had just poured over me.

“Okay,” I say and smile when he leans in kissing me chastely on the lips as he grabs the tray, and I follow him to their living room.

Thankfully coffee had been uneventful, and Mike said we needed to head back early because I had to work the next day. I didn’t, but I didn’t mind lying because I wanted to get away from Gail Crown and I wanted Mike to finish what he had started in the kitchen.

Sabrina

We skip his make out spot and head over to his beach house. Having been there only a month before with the kids, it is familiar yet there are things I notice that I hadn’t when we had been here before.

Standing in his bedroom, the moonlight splashes in filling it with a beautiful glow. The room looks beautiful. More beautiful than I ever thought a bedroom could look. The crisp white, plush bedding hangs over the king sized bed, and the gauzy white floor to ceiling curtains are almost transparent as they hang over the windows. I realize I am nervous about being here, knowing we are alone. Which is silly really because we’d already had sex. Countless times over the last two months, more than making up for all the times all we had done was make out and mess around.

But now standing in this room, the way he is looking at me right now, I feel as if somehow we are turning the corner onto a new road of our relationship.

He almost looks at me in a predatory way. His ice blue eyes almost silver, are hooded and glazed with desire.

“I want you,” he says, his voice husky with need. His breath lightly hitting my lips, reminds me of how close he’s standing to me. Not that I could forget with the heat radiating off his body, and his hard long erection poking my tummy.

“I want you too,” I tell him and can’t seem to stop smiling.

He leans in and I brace myself expecting a hungry kiss from him, but he surprises me by kissing me sweetly. So gentle it makes me ache with need. Slowly building the burn for him. His lips are on mine, kissing me softly, sweetly almost as if I’m somehow made of glass. Like I’m something precious he needs to take care of, and for some reason my eyes get watery.

Emotions are a funny thing, one moment you think you have them in check, in control, and the next they punch you in the gut and make you breathless.

I open my eyes slowly to see him, his eyes on mine. They shine with so much emotion that something tightens inside my chest.
Something is definitely different tonight,
I think. In this moment I want to tell him that I love him so badly… the words feel as if they are at the tip of my tongue. I just worry about his reaction, and about pushing him too much too fast. Or if I’m being honest with myself, I need to hear the words from him. I’ve known for a while that I was in love with him, but have just been too big of a baby to be the first to say the words.

His lips left mine and he took a step back as his eyes roamed my body, his gaze heating my skin. He gently takes off my sweater and when he sees my cami underneath, he mumbles that I’m wearing too many clothes. The seriousness in his face makes me giggle. Giggle! Here I am, a thirty-six year old widow, single mom of three, having endured the worst loneliest almost four years of my life, and this incredible man standing in front of me made me giggle. Emmi would make fun of me for the rest of my life if she knew how much of a nerd I truly was.

“Let me help you,” I tell him, my voice a little raspier than usual.

It felt like we took our clothes off in a blink of an eye, with a blur of clothes and shoes making a pile below us.

***

Mike

Her chest on mine, my thighs touching her legs, my throbbing cock poking her tummy. I need to bury myself in her. She had quickly become my addiction. There hasn’t been a day that has passed without me having had her, except for the three day business trip I had to take last week, and even then we had been creative over Skype. Watching her touch herself while I told her what I wanted to do to her body the next time I was there had been the most erotic thing, and when she came undone my name on her lips was my own undoing. I’m so completely in love with her, but haven’t told her yet.

Part of me believed I fell in love with her the first moment I felt her in my arms, but the way she had really forgave me had solidified it for me. There was so much I wanted to tell her and show her. Tonight isn’t going to be about hard, fast and dirty. I want to show her how much I care.

“Baby tonight,” I can’t seem to get my words together, but her eyes her eyes tell me she understands.

She looks at me, her hand going over my heart, almost like she is about to say something. She opens and then closes her mouth twice. I can see the wheels turning like she is trying to decide on something.

God I love her.

I love every little thing about her. The way her eyes glitter with mischief and light, the way she lays it all out on the table, never confusing you as to where you stand with her. Tonight I’ll show her how much I love her. I’m going to love her slowly, making sure to worship her body like a queen, and then tomorrow I’ll tell her.